Each week we bring you a sample of the books we’re reading, the films we’re watching, the television shows we’re hooked on, or the music we’re loving.

Tye Cattanach is reading The Loudness of Unsaid Thing by Hilde Hinton

I meant to read The Loudness of Unsaid Things at the same time everyone else was reading it, but somehow, it just never happened that way. Then, I was asked to read and review Hinton’s forthcoming novel - A Solitary Walk on the Moon, for the April Readings Monthly. You’ll have to wait for the review, but spoiler alert, I LOVED it so much, I immediately rectified the terrible oversight of not yet having read The Loudness of Unsaid Things.

NOW, I totally understand what all the fuss was about, those of you who have read it will be nodding wisely at me (perhaps even winking conspiratorially if you are able). If there is anyone left in the country who hasn’t read this magical, marvellous, funny, warm and heartfelt book, to you I say, run, don’t walk, to get yourself a copy however you can.

Procure yourself a warm beverage, some orange and poppyseed cake and a box of tissues. READ it. Please. You will not be sorry.

Baz Ozturk is reading Fat City by Leonard Gardner

I recently read the modern American classic Fat City by Leonard Gardner, a story centred on two boxers that’s not about boxing.

The pleasure of reading it, aside from the stellar prose—which at moments, in particular scenes, is truly virtuosic—is in the depth of Gardner’s understanding of his characters, and of the place of Stockton, California, at a particular time; it’s evoked so vividly that it will stay alive as long as this book is around.

Fat City is a poignantly humane novel about embattled men and women existing on the edges of society, on the brink of poverty, who have long endured hardships and struggle to find something to take comfort in.